


No Poems Remain: Valiant Adventures of Survival and Longing

by LilithSerenada



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Magical Realism, chapter-by-chapter archive warnings in the tags, no archive warnings apply to chapter 1, no archive warnings apply to chapter 2, summaries will be linked for chapters with archive warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:49:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilithSerenada/pseuds/LilithSerenada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin leads a bland life as a professional slacker until the day that a mysterious woman named Lexa approaches her on the street threatening to frame her for a crime she did not commit. Clarke teams up with her, eager to clear her name, but quickly becomes addicted to the adventure - and to Lexa. A fantastic conspiracy catches up with them, forcing them apart and causing the duo to not only fight for their lives, but to fight for the day when they can once again be together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for giving my fic a look - I really appreciate it.  
> Shoot me some feedback or give me a follow @LilithSerenada on Tumblr if you end up enjoying it. Take care!

Clarke tossed and turned violently in her bed as a Dream thundered through her imagination.

She saw herself reach her hands through a set of bars to touch a woman’s shadowed face. Moonlight floated in from the narrow window behind her, outlining her silhouette with sharp clarity. The cool air of the embassy jail lay stagnant as she caressed her cheek. She missed this woman terribly, and knew the woman missed her as much. In the interrogation room, Clarke became very nervous. The lights were harsh and it was painful to look anywhere but towards the floor. The room kept spinning uncontrollably. She wanted to leave but always ended up right back in the same seat. This time there was a moustached man shouting at her, slamming his hand on a folder. She did not know where he came from, but he was making her feel so guilty, so scared. He kept shouting at her and she kept feeling guilty and he kept shouting and she wanted to leave more than anything in the world and soon his words became clear crystal bells in her ears. “We know everything, Clarke! We know everything. We have documents on the cookies and we know how you ran from the beach and we know everything!” She was terribly confused now, but thankfully not scared. She felt her stomach drop a little and her head spin. Her stomach, her head, she looked down and had legs and could feel them and her arms and chest and she could feel her face and the blood coursing through her veins felt -- _oh shit...did I just go lucid?_

She looked up at the man and his ridiculous moustache. He had stopped yelling now. His puffy red face had been replaced with one turned skim white, his jaw fallen in terror. Clarke suddenly grew very excited. One does not simply wake up in a lucid dream, after all, without taking absolute, full advantage of the situation.

She tugged at her handcuffs (was she even handcuffed before?) and shook them off like oversized bracelets (doesn’t matter). She put her palms on the underside of the table in front of her and threw it with all her might at the moustached man. The cardboard Starbucks cup filled with his coffee (was there coffee there before?) flew in slow motion, splashing over his astonished face. She replayed the moment in slow motion so she could watch the scalding liquid soak his hair to the root. The table slammed his stout body against the back wall with an incredible _thud!_ , immediately knocking him unconscious. As his body dropped to the floor in dramatic slow motion, his keyring sprang from his waist, flying across the room as if by telekinesis. Clarke caught it easily in mid-air amidst the chaos.

She planted her feet and charged her shoulder into the interrogation room door. It broke open with a satisfying snap, letting Clarke tumble into the outside hallway, decorated by an eternal row of cold jail cells. _Oh!,_ her omnipresent thought echoed, _I wonder if I can find that lady again, figure out more about her._ No sooner had the exhilaration of the thought run through her bones than red lights began flashing throughout the entire complex, thousands of them, blinding bright and spinning on their axes, loud sirens undulating in tempo. Clarke took a moment to look around to see what she had brought upon herself.

At one end of the long hallway she could see a small army of blue uniformed cops with white, headlight eyes clamoring into a linear formation, police dogs straining their leashes at the ever-palpable scent of blood and fear, ready to bolt after her at a moment’s notice. Down the opposite end of the hall shone a white light, begging for her to come to it, to be at peace, to be free. _Well if I ever said I wanted an easy choice..._

She could feel herself nearly knocked conscious by her corporeal body’s dreary chuckle. She had to make a concerted effort now to stay in her dreamworld. Part of her wondered if this ruined any potential meaning the dream had locked away for her. Is it tainted by her conscious creativity? Had the tides just turned in an infinite war between it and a mysterious flow of ethereal symbolism produced by her unconscious mind?

Clarke found herself caught in a windless sprint, charging through a dense, dark forest filled with oak trees of all sizes, most of which were taller than she cared to comprehend. The distant sound of dogs barking and howling after her made her stumble momentarily. She could see beams of flashlights shaking violently on either side of her. Attempting to outrun the speed of light itself, a fallen log appeared before her. Remembering her lucidity, she vaulted it like an Olympic athlete. _No sense stopping there,_ she dreamed, bounding lithely from tree to tree one foot at a time. She climbed the trees further and further with each jump, cascading through a blanket of leaves and twigs, swinging from them when she had the chance, eventually finding herself running on the treetops themselves.

The moon was astonishingly large. It were as if she were running through space itself, nearly completing her journey to land on its surface with her own two feet. And the stars...well, she suspected that there were more of them than there should have been. In fact, Clarke was pretty sure her consciousness caught her dream brain adding in speckles of light to fill the gaps between others. She took a deep breath of the freshest astronomical air she had ever breathed and stopped at the mysterious woman’s cage.

“Hey,” she said plainly. “We gotta get out of here. They’re looking for us.”

“Clarke,” the woman whispered. Her silhouette was clothed by the massive moon, so bright that her face was still shrouded in mystery.

“Hey, I’m right here. I’m right here. We gotta go, though, please -”

“Clarke!” she began shouting, “Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Cl--”

_...oh..._

Clarke’s eyes shot open. She sighed in frustration and hit the Snooze button on her alarm with the bottom of a full fist and as much force as she thought the dollar store contraption could handle without buckling. She smashed her eyes closed as tight as she could, desperate to reanimate the dream. _Okay, trees, climbing, bright moon, mysterious woman - wasn’t she supposed to be in the jail? Okay, I guess her cell is just up here now. She stood in front of the moon and…god, what did she look like?_ Her brain spun trying to create a face for the woman. All that she could conjure was the face of her landlord, Ms. Bianca, as she insisted on being called, deeply bronzed and wrinkled from a lifetime of weekly tanning. There is not a reason in hell why Ms. Bianca deserved to be in a dream that beautiful and vivid. She groaned and threw her pillow to the end of the bed, feeling it hit her feet and fall to the floor. Checking her clock, she wished scourge upon her job for making her wake up before noon.

Slowly, and with a great deal of reluctance, Clarke’s feet found their way to the floor and soon were carrying her through her morning routine, part of which included admiring her shit-hole apartment as she brushed her teeth.

Dirty clothes and clean alike littered the floor atop a mustard yellow-dusted, brown shag carpet. Clarke suspected that it probably still held toenail clippings from at least two previous tenants. A pair of underwear stopped just short of a stained linoleum floor cut from the carpet in the far corner of the room. She didn’t know exactly what the stain was from, but she also couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t there. The refrigerator and gas stove that it held were slick to the touch with grease. Clarke liked to tell people that not wanting to touch the disgusting appliances was the reason she never cooked for herself and instead filled her countertops with pizza boxes of various sizes. Deep down, though, she knew that she was just lazy.

She quickly ran a brush through her hair and began putting on her work outfit. Black dress pants: check. White button-down shirt: check. Bow tie, tux vest, deep sense of embarrassment and shame: check, check, check. She slipped on her company-mandated glossy dress shoes and threw open her front door, ready to attend her valet position for the day.

Or ready, at least, to not lose the only job she’d been able to secure in the last 8 months.

 

* * *

 

The sun had finally made its exit behind the mirrored glass office buildings, giving Clarke’s eyes reprieve after an exhaustingly slow day of cooking in the sun. The decrepit plastic chair underneath her made a tiny crack as her body relaxed into it but she couldn’t conjure the energy to care. Maybe if the legs snap off of it she’ll break her tailbone and get worker’s comp. The Arkadia Hotel certainly had enough money to make King Solomon blush. Whether they would spend it on a non-unioned valet’s tragic chair accident was a different story, she supposed.

Faint, distant echoes from the parking garage haunted the air behind her. The young ghosts of slamming car doors mixed with shouts and footsteps in an eerie madrigal that lulled Clarke to a soft peace of mind. Her imagination began dancing behind her closed eyes as the gentle rush of wind along the city streets added to the harmony and cooled her skin all at once, accompanied by the crescendo of an approaching vehicle.

It took her a second to snap to. The chair rocked dangerously behind her as she shot from it, holding her own hands behind her back and standing up straight as the Cadillac pulled up to her. A younger white man with a gentle bronze tan opened the door. His hair was slicked back with so much hair gel that it could reasonably have doubled as a bike helmet. It took a second longer, but the remnants of his cologne bath spilled out of the car with him, impressively overpowering the piss-and-rainwater aroma of the city. He looked Clarke in the eyes and whistled such a shrill tone at her that she flinched. “Would you like me to park your car for you, sir?” she asked peevishly.

“I dunno, baby girl, sure you won’t put a scratch on it?” He chewed his gum excitedly while flashing a pearly white smile at her. Its charm must have fallen off halfway between them.

“Trained and certified parking assistant, sir, guaranteed not a scratch.”

“Alright alright!” he laughed. “Better be sure, ‘cause if I find anything I’m gonna have to come get you and make you wash and wax it for me. You got a bikini, donchya sweetheart?” He pointed at her with an outstretched arm as he walked by, locking eye contact and still _fucking_ smiling. God, he probably thought he was being cute, too.

“Ha ha,” Clarke laughed dryly, forcing a smile that she ambivalently hoped came across as snarky. “I’m sure we won’t have to worry about that! You can tell the attendant inside that your number is 25 when you come back for it, sir!” He tossed his keys at her before disappearing through the hotel’s grandiose front door. Her smile dropped just as quickly. _Cock._

She opened the driver’s side door and slid into the leather seats. The pungent _odeur_ of cologne hung stagnantly in the air. Clarke stretched her head out into the street for a brief moment, sucking in one last lungful of sweet, fresh breath before slamming the door and imprisoning herself in the misted sedan.

The ignition started and, with it, came an overwhelming flurry of notes from a saxophone solo, honking away by Kenny G or some such jackass. She groaned in disdain at it before twisting the tuner knob to the city’s token hard rock station. It was solace to have some semblance of control over her situations, even if it were as petty as listening to her own music for 30 seconds as she parked some yuppie’s car.

She caught a glimpse of an employee ID in a small compartment as she dropped her hand from the tuner. _Finn Collins,_ she thought to herself. She made a mental note of his name for her daily mid-day perusal of the obituaries. Hell, maybe he’d even make headlines as a mass shooter or something. Behind bars or in an early grave, it was always interesting to see where these rich pretty-boys ended up.

She brushed her hand across the dashboard in search of a tip and found nothing but the disappointment of a thin, solitary bill. Part of her pretended that she expected it to be a Hundred, but whatever tiny shard of optimism she had left must have been seriously disappointed at the utter lack of zeroes on the paper. She was a single dollar richer while Finn Collins was probably halfway through his second $9 bourbon. There’s a special place in Hell for awful tippers.

She put the Cadillac in drive and made her way to parking space 25 where she promised him it would be. Unfortunately for him, Clarke’s pettiness knew no bottom. She cranked the stereo to its max volume before twisting the key to its “off” position. _With any luck he’ll crap his over-priced Chinos,_ she thought with amusement. She dropped off Finn Collins’ keys to Monroe, the attendant, and made sure she knew to put them in cubby number 25. “This one’s a Class A douche,” she warned him. “Smells like a Dior storefront, too.”

She laughed. Monroe always laughed at Clarke’s bitter humor. Somedays she was convinced that Monroe was the only reason she stayed at this job. “I’ll make sure I tell him you said that,” she mused. Clarke smiled coyly and flashed a playful middle finger at her as she pushed open the glass door with her foot and made her way back to her sad, little chair once more until the next rich bastard pulled up.

As she turned the corner back into the city, she glanced down the street to see a strong, slim woman at the other end of the block in a hooded sweatshirt carrying a brown paper bag. Normally, Clarke wouldn’t have paid a second thought, but the way this woman moved through the crowd, twisting her shoulders and overtaking the slower meanderers, made her stick out. She was walking, technically, but only barely. Every couple of long, quick steps were rewarded with a light bounce that propelled her forward the slightest bit more. Her eyes were fixated intensely on the air immediately before her, brow furrowed as she made her way. Even the bag she carried was cradled securely in her arm like a football. Girl had a mission. And that mission was getting awfully close.

When the woman was no more than a few steps out, her eyes locked on to Clarke’s. Clarke felt as if she were suddenly painted in black and white. Her lungs forgot how to breathe and her heart forgot how to beat and she didn’t mean to back up a step but the woman’s sharp, green eyes seemed to look directly into the shadows of her soul. For the first time, Clarke could make out the details of her face. Cheekbones so sharp they could cut your hand if you weren’t careful, and her lips had a plump pout so defined and perfect that she temporarily wondered if this woman had walked straight out of a magazine. Even her skin was flawless and radiant, and _her eyes_ \- she wore what some might consider an excessive amount of mascara but, frankly, it worked for her. Clarke felt like she could build a home in those eyes and live there forever if she were given the chance. She followed her wavy, brown hair down her shoulders, eventually fixating on the bag she held in her arm. The woman began to untuck it from inside her elbow. She broke her eyes from Clarke’s as the bag fell from her lithe hand, landing in front of Clarke’s feet with an uneasy _thump_.

“Hey!” Clarke called after her when her breath finally returned. “You dropped your --” but she had disappeared like an apparition around the corner. Clarke couldn’t help but feel like she had dropped it on purpose. She kneeled to pick up the bag and peeked inside.

Jesus, what an awful idea.

She crushed the opening of the bag shut again and pressed herself against the hotel’s wall, looking all around to make sure people, security cameras, whoever, weren’t looking in the bag with her. She eased it open once more and, with a deep gulp, tried to comprehend what she was looking at.

On top lay a matte black handgun. She hadn’t the slightest idea what kind - Clarke hated guns of all shapes and sizes, _especially_ ones in her hands and _especially_ ones given to her by utter strangers on the sidewalk. It may as well have been a ticking time bomb sitting there for how she felt about it. A piece of paper was rolled up and lying next to the firearm, bound with a hair tie. She carefully lifted it from the bag, not wanting to accidentally shoot herself or explode or - god, she didn’t even know what. She rolled off the hair tie and spread open the scroll. Thin, waify handwriting tattooed the paper.

 

 

_There’s a pistol and $1,000 of traceable bills in this bag._

_They are linked to an armed robbery from 3 days ago._

_Don’t go to the police._

_They’ll never believe you._

_Meet me tonight at 26887 E Baltic St._

_We’ll talk, and I can make this go away._

_NO COPS!!!_

 

Clarke continued to stare at the note in disbelief, etching each letter in her mind to make sure she was reading what she thought she was. She peeked back into the bag and, sure enough, there under the death black handgun were stacks of cash, money, moola bound in various colored rubber bands. The city began to spin around her.

“What in the fuck,” Clarke exclaimed under her breath.


	2. A Heist

Lexa sat patiently in the abandoned duplex far at the end of Baltic Street. An electrical fire had devastated the building in the 80s - or at least that's what Lexa surmised from the blackened wood studs that still somehow held the second floor upright. The drywall was dark and charred where it was even still standing, jagged and defeated, around the perimeter. In some places there was even yellow, mildewed wallpaper hanging sadly from it, as if it were yearning to finally lay on the cold ground after all these years. Whatever had been covering the floor during the building’s glory days had been since removed and naked concrete now bared its back. Lexa wasn’t sure what it was that caused the floor to take such a rough beating, but scars from unknown battles lay deep and wide across it. Even the rusted rebar could taste the air in a handful of locations.

She had hauled up a shabby Victorian arm chair from the lower floor, kidnapping it from its dingy home in a pile of equally old junk. It was surprisingly comfortable considering its age. She remembered seeing an old crib in the same room, busted bars like missing teeth from a life lived being shown more indifference than care. Smackheads had filled it with dirty needles in recent years, but even by then it was long past its prime. 

Lexa wondered about that old crib sometimes. She wondered if the baby had made it out alright or if it was lost in the fire with the rest of the house. Wondered if it had grown up to be a successful businessperson, or maybe an engineer. Sometimes she wondered if it had grown up to be as much of a disaster as she was. Whenever someone talks about a person’s potential, after all, they always neglect to discuss their potential for despair.

The dull neon from the sugar mill’s monstrous sign bled softly through the dirty, broken picture window before Lexa. The room around her flashed a subtle shade of red for one full second before going dark once more, on and off, on and off, a metronome for Lexa’s thoughts. 

The sun was long down by now. Part of her was worried that Clarke wouldn’t show up. That she would go to the police and show them the gun, all the money. Lexa knew that she had covered her tracks. The police would never be able to track a single thing back to her short of going down there herself and confessing to it directly to the chief’s face. Even then it would take some work to convict herself or she’d just as likely be turned away than locked away. Police don’t like being shown how big of fools they are.

Lexa lifted her supermarket brand gallon jug of water from the floor beside her, turning it up to her mouth with one steady hand and drinking boldly from it. She refused to break her stare from the street below. If --  _ when  _ Clarke arrived, she would not have her running away because the bad end of town made her a little jumpy. She swirled the water in her jug as a peony of anxiety flowered in her chest. 

What would she do if Clarke didn’t show up? She’d be furious, certainly. The heist would be off-schedule. And trying to coerce a second employee from the same job to help her after the first failed? It was all diminishing return from here on out. No, it would be back to writing up a new plan if Clarke didn’t pull through. And considering how sensitive this particular job was, the entire idea might have to be scrapped altogether.

Lexa took a deep breath and sighed, trying to release her worries with it, but a small petal of emotion remained, flitting around her stomach playfully. Was it...infatuation? The word ran across Lexa’s mind like a marquee, bolded and underlined with flashing lights on either side. It certainly was.

This was the problem with getting your leads from gay men, she thought. They always forget to tell you how  _ eternally beautiful  _ the mark is. Gustus didn’t see Clarke’s brave, blue eyes or her soft blonde hair with that playful pink edginess. He didn’t see her welcoming wide hips or her rather spectacular cleavage. And there was certainly no way he noticed every micro-movement, every subtle change in expression that her face could make and how it opened a mirror to the radiant inner light of her soul. No, he just saw a doe-eyed girl with a coy smile and thought she’d be a pushover. But girls that pretty are never just pushovers - they sharpen their teeth in ways you could never imagine.

Frankly, she thought it was a damn shame that she had to treat Clarke like this right off the bat. Poor girl didn’t even know her name and she was already framing her for larceny. But it’s not like she had any choice either. Titus was always on her ass with some new job that they both knew she couldn’t complete on her own. He’d never even assign her a partner. Titus had a certain notoriety for executing those that failed him, and Lexa was convinced that he wanted her to fail to satisfy his own bloodlust. 

He claimed the executions were to make them examples for the rest of us. “Honest motivation,” he called it. She was certain it was an excuse - that he actually enjoyed killing the crooks and liars who worked under him. Some sort of perverted power-play to make him feel like more of a man. God, of all the people she could have fallen into bad company with and she got the one with a violent superiority complex.

Lexa sighed and sidetracked her thoughts to a happier place, began to daydream of impossible endings to the job at hand. Endings where maybe she and Clarke made it out together. 

Maybe she could decorate the drop-off point with irresponsibly large bouquets of flowers and ask her on a date then. Maybe they could go to some hipster coffee shop or an extravagant restaurant with crystal chandeliers - whichever one Clarke wanted. Lexa wasn’t too particular. Maybe they could spend time at the beach, splashing in the water and building a sandcastle. 

It occurred to Lexa that she had yet to see Clarke smile. That would change when they fell in love, of course. They would be very happy together, holding hands, smiling all the time. She wagered that Clarke’s hands were very soft and small and nice to hold. But even if they were rough, wouldn’t that add another facet to the diamond of her beauty? A mysterious flaw that deepened her and made her the complex masterpiece she was? She touched Clarke’s hands in the bellows of her mind, once soft, once rough. She was in deep whichever way they came, she decided with annoyance.

Lexa took another slow gulp from her water jug, her gaze still fixated on the street, so longingly now that she nearly choked with excitement when she saw her new partner on the sidewalk below. She dropped the jug and sprang for the window, twisting the hatch lock and pushing it out far enough that Clarke could see her. It was game time.

Poor thing looked nervous and confused, looking to and fro at every graffitied building, using her phone’s flashlight to try and find the house number.  _ The odds are on the South side,  _ Lexa thought to herself _. It’s been that way for 12 blocks. How could you not notice?  _ She began to wonder if she had made the right decision in recruiting this girl. She certainly wasn’t perceptive.

“Clarke Griffin,” she said as loudly as she could muster without waking the neighbourhood.

Clarke jumped backwards, dropping her phone on the sidewalk. Her eyes quickly found Lexa’s open window and she stared into it like a terrified cat. Lexa snapped her fingers loudly and made a motion pointing upward, mouthing the word  _ UP! _ at Clarke. She slammed the window shut and locked it once again, turning around and leaning casually against the window to wait for her to find her way to the floor. Lexa was never one to take appearances for granted.

She waited for the halo of Clarke’s hair to peek at her as she made her way up the steps, but even after several seconds, it didn’t show. Suddenly Lexa’s cool demeanor was jolted.  _ Son of a bitch, she better not have run off. _

She bounded for the stairwell, using her momentum to spin her around as she caught hold of the banister “Clarke! Clarke Griffin!” she called as she sprinted down the stairs. She jumped the last few steps to the landing. Turning toward the front door, she was immediately caught off guard by a hard shove and a body pinning her to the wall. Panic ran through her, but it quickly subsided as she realized who it was. 

“There you are Clarke,” she gasped. Clarke’s dangerous leather jacket matched her lioness eyes. She was clearly pissed - and Lexa couldn’t have been happier to see it. Clarke seethed with anger so palpable it could have burned a hole through Lexa’s head. “What, do you wanna frisk me?”

“For a start,” Clarke growled. She spun Lexa by the shoulders and shoved her roughly into the wall. Lexa grunted as her cheek dug into chalky drywall, but she obliged and put her hands over her head, palm-down on the surface. Clarke traced her abdomen with both hands, even pressing between her breasts in case she were concealing a switchblade in her cleavage, she supposed. Lexa should have expected that level of scrupulousness but found herself gasping in spite of it. “Hey, you wanna buy me a drink first?”

“Shut up,” Clarke bellowed. “I don’t enjoy this.” She slid her hands along the outside of Lexa’s thighs. Finding her boots, she dug a finger in and around the tops of them before starting up her inner legs. “Coming to the ass-end of nowhere, getting dragged into some burned down house.” The sides of both of her hands slammed into Lexa’s vagina like a karate chop. It was uncomfortable enough that she couldn’t even pretend it was sexy. “Having to forcibly frisk someone - hold out your arms - forcibly frisk someone because they dropped off a  _ gun  _ at my goddamn job.” Clarke finished searching the tops and bottoms of Lexa’s arms, grabbed her by the shoulders, and spun her around again, slamming her back into the wall. She lay into the top of Lexa’s chest with her forearm and glared into her eyes. “Do you know what it feels like to have this level of shit suddenly piled on top of you?”

Lexa gazed back into Clarke’s blue eyes for a short moment of silence, trying her best to make them look amused if she could. “Do you want me to answer, or will you just yell at me again?”

“Where are the others?” Clarke demanded of her. “I know you’re not alone in here. You’ve probably got two or three big burly guys waiting up there for me, right? To jump me?”

“So, what, you think my plan was to  _ give you a weapon _ and then invite you somewhere six hours later so we could mug you for all the money you wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring? Clarke --”

“And that!” she shouted, rebounding off of her to put distance between the two of them, “How the hell do you even know my name?”

Lexa stared at her expectantly for a moment, hoping the woman would be able to figure it out for herself. Not seeing any hope, she enlightened her in a soft, level voice. “You were wearing a shiny badge on your work uniform that said ‘Clarke Griffin, Parking Attendant.’”

Clarke was quiet a moment. Lexa was sure that if there were more than just a shred of moonlight in this house she would be able to see her blushing. Clarke stared at Lexa’s boots a moment before snapping to again, trying to match the fire that lit her moments ago but falling desperately short. “What do you want with me, then?”

Lexa wet her lips, thankful she had finally calmed down. She reached her hand out to her, slowly and deliberately so as not to startle her again. “My name is Lexa. I’m a corporate assassin, and I need your help with a job.”

Clarke looked hesitantly at her outstretched arm. “I’m  _ not  _ touching your hand.”

Lexa tried to keep a straight face. “You just touched a whole lot more than that.”

Clarke looked off to the side (blushing again, she hoped), then back at Lexa and shook her hand firmly. “This doesn’t mean I’m your partner, though.”

“Of course,” Lexa said. “I haven’t even given you the details yet. If you’d like, I have a more homey arrangement upstairs.” Lexa gestured toward the stairwell. “Would you like me to go up first, or…?”

Clarke broke eye contact after a short second and ascended the stairs to the upper floor with Lexa in tow. Two ugly, torn chairs sat facing each other in the middle of the room, bisected by a plastic card table where Lexa conducted her business matters when necessary. A modest number of candles sat in the center of it hosting a thick layer of dust.

“Have a seat,” Lexa offered.

“I think I’ll stand, actually,” Clarke insisted.

“Very well.” Lexa took the seat facing away from the window over-looking the street and struck a match to light the candles in front of her. An orange glow flickered into existence and then softly filled the room. “You’re here because you want your name cleared,” she began cooly, waving out the match. “To do that, I need you to help me with a small heist. Net gain approximated at $550,000.”

“I--I’m sorry, but how exactly will stealing half a million dollars clear my name? No! What the fuck, no,  _ no  _ way.” Clarke paced the room, staring Lexa in the eyes. Lexa looked down at the table and hoped Clarke could keep her temper in check. This was a professional business meeting, after all, but Clarke continued on. “This is ridiculous. I’m turning this money in to the police and they’ll figure it out from here. I have your address, I have your description, I ha--”

“Clarke, please.” She looked back up at her. “The only thing you’d be turning in would be yourself. Your fingerprints are all over the bag. Probably on the gun, too.” Lexa got up and walked to a chest in a shadowed corner of the room. “Description of the robber is a woman, early 20s or so, wearing a black mask.” From the chest she pulled a long, blonde wig, streaked with pink chalk at the bottom, and threw it to the floor at Clarke’s feet. “Blonde. With pink tips.”

Clarke’s voice shook, “This doesn’t look anything like my hair.”

“You think Mr. Ling from the Gas n’ Go on Columbia will notice? Considering you had a gun to his face, I’m not sure he was too keen on the details --”

“That wasn’t me! That wasn’t me, it was you, I --”

“ _ Sit down Clarke. _ ” Lexa didn’t shout, but spoke the words in a deliberate, low roar. The color washed from Clarke’s face as she held on to the back of the chair once more, the weight of her defeat resting on her shoulders. “You don’t have any choice here.” Lexa silently damned herself for being so rough with her, but this needed to get done. She couldn’t give Titus any more reason to make her life miserable.

Clarke’s hands shook. She pulled out the chair from the table and fell into it without a feather of grace. Lexa sat herself across from her once again.

“Now let me start from the top one more time. Are you listening? Good. Here’s the scoop...”

 

*****

 

“Your number will be 17!” Clarke called after her patron far too loudly, her voice shaking. “You can -- uhm, you can tell the attendant that when you’re done. When you’re ready to leave, I mean. That you’re 17. She’ll --” The Arkadia Hotel’s towering front door closed with a wisp and a thud as the man disappeared inside. She gulped heavily and inspected him as he walked out of sight.

_ Our mark is five foot, seven inches.  _ Lexa’s voice echoed in Clarke’s memory as she double-checked his attributes to ensure he was the right person.  _ White guy, short, brown hair, very bland description. He usually has diamond studs in his ears. He’ll be wearing a very expensive business suit and likely won’t make eye contact with you. He’ll have a briefcase at his side, probably handcuffed to his wrist. But that’s more for me than it is for you.  _ Everything seemed to check out. 

_ He’s a drug lord on his way to make a deal, so don’t piss him off. This may be T-M-I, but the entire reason he’s our target is to drive out coke dealers from the Arkadia Hotel. The managers know these big deals go on, and they’ve been making a mean cut from it in return for safety and discretion. Now there are players who want that business for themselves.  _

Clarke looked back at the man’s car idling in front of her.  _ He drives a silver Buick. From the scouting I’ve done, my guess is that it’ll be in tip-top shape. He likes his toys clean and new. Here’s the license plate number. Memorize it - can’t risk you having a paper trail tying you to the planning of this if you still want your get-out-of-jail-free card.  _

“P-L-A, 2-1-5” she whispered under her breath, scanning the license plate over and over again, making sure it was the one. The sequence matched perfectly. 

Clarke slipped into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind her. A soft jazz station was playing quietly through the speakers. Somehow the calming music grated on her nerves. She swatted at the radio console where she expected the tuner to be and the car fell silent. She took in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and exhaled slowly.

_ You’re job is easy. All you need to do is be the valet they expect. Do everything that you normally would, but do not give up the keys and do not park. We’re going to use the mark’s car as a getaway so that he can’t pursue. You just need to drive up to the second floor, make sure you have a clear path to the exit ramp, and wait for me there. The rest is up to me. I shouldn’t be too long. _

Clarke obeyed the orders in her memory, holding the brakes on the car and anxiously watching the hotel exit in the rearview mirror. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, pulling and twisting it in her hands. She could smell carbon monoxide from the car getting stronger. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.

An eternity seemed to pass and defiant thoughts ran through her head. She could just park this car right now. She could botch all of Lexa’s plans right here. Catch her as she ran out and hold her until the authorities came. She thought back to how easily she overpowered her in her own hideout, taking her off guard with a simple trick. It would be that easy now, too. Lexa told her she could make this all go away, but Clarke had the power to wash it away, too. This could end here.

Meditating on her backup plan brought her comfort, but Clarke didn’t park the car. She didn’t get out to trap Lexa. She couldn’t move. The eternity went on and on and her head began to feel a little dizzy and her heart ran at a thousand miles an hour. She rationalized that only 30 seconds or so had passed, and by 31 it dawned on her that this - the waiting in the car, the aiding and abetting, the criminal intent - it all began to feel very comfortable to her. Eerily comfortable. 

This realization set in to every corner of her body like a fine powder. It became one with her, alloyed her heart to a proud steel, and her nervous anxiety morphed ever so subtly to nervous excitement. She caught herself laughing quietly, and a smile found its way onto her face. She had so much power in the seat of this car. She was actually going to make things  _ happen. _ For the first time in Clarke’s life, she felt like she was on the verge of true freedom.

The door finally burst open to a shove from Lexa’s powerful body and with a final glance behind her, she sprinted full-tilt toward their new Buick. In one agile motion, she ripped open the door and fell into the passenger seat. “GO, GO, GO!” Lexa yelled. The excitement and anticipation erupted in Clarke, better than any orgasm she had ever had. The car squealed with joy as it peeled toward the exit. 

A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed Mr. Bland-Description running after them shouting and waving. He pulled a gun from inside his suit. Two loud  _ crack! _ s railed against the parking garage’s concrete walls as the driver’s side mirror shattered in a glassy explosion and fell limp against the car. 

They were being  _ shot at.  _

Clarke couldn’t tell if she screamed or laughed, but didn’t have time to figure it out. The parking booth’s retracting arm broke easily against the car’s momentum. Clarke tactfully toggled between brakes and gas and with one screeching turn onto Bellvue, they were gone.

 

After a couple blocks, Lexa directed her to slow down, to just drive normally. She obliged easily, the suggestion feeling as natural as if it were her own. It was as if she were hypnotized by the pure volume of adrenaline running through her body, dazed and full of wonder as if she had only experienced life for the first time. Without thinking, she reached over and grabbed Lexa’s hand. “We did it. We did it, holy SHIT we did it!!” she screamed. She could feel Lexa staring at her in bewilderment. “Yeah! Yeah, we did. Clarke, you’re, uh...you’re  _ really  _ good at this.”

Clarke smiled and ran her tongue across the back of her teeth. She couldn’t explain why it felt so good to impress Lexa, but the compliment released a swarm of butterflies in her stomach that danced in wild circles and drank the adrenaline with her.

Lexa looked back to the road. “Alright, almost there. Take a right up here on Jackson and there’ll be a small garage - right there,” she pointed. “Pull up.”

The door opened obediently for them and Clarke gently moved the Buick into it. A tattooed man with a hearty beard stood in the corner wiping his hands with a towel. Lexa waved at him and he returned the gesture before retreating into a nearby door.

The adrenaline continued to surge through Clarke, her hands still glued to the steering wheel. “Lexa,” she began. Everything within her fluttered and she felt like she was controlling herself from afar. She picked her words like a child picked up their toys - deliberately slow, and cherishing each one. “I need to kiss you. Like, right now.” 

She turned to look at Lexa, and no sooner had blue eyes met green than Lexa grabbed Clarke’s face and pulled them together in a deep, passionate kiss. The world slowly fell away from around them and the warm, careful void scooped them up, holding them gently in its loving arms. Eternity met face with eternity and circled around them, christening them, in a pool of infinite wonders and joy. Clarke felt like she would fly away if it wasn’t for Lexa’s weight holding her down, like she would be sucked into the deep red velvet vortex of excited infatuation and tossed asunder until every single atom that has been and ever could be in her body had been graced with this raw, divine understanding. A single, excited tear traced a path down Clarke’s face as they held each other close, as their hearts knitted tightly into one.

_ Freedom. _


End file.
